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Post by sandwiches on Dec 2, 2017 16:14:57 GMT
I conclude that, in so far as scholarly judgment of the matter is concerned, Carrier’s often-strident efforts will be judged as the last hurrah of the “mythicist” claim, although internet die-hards are likely to remain doggedly committed to it. Seems optimistic to me. There's no reason I can see that Mythicism will become less popular; Hurtado certainly doesn't offer one. A failure of the establishment to give Carrier anything more than a roll of the eyeballs will simply be seen as further evidence of either a great conspiracy of scholarship, or a sign of Carrier being terribly ahead of his time. And as the late Maurice Casey said: rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/the-jesus-process-maurice-casey/One of the most remarkable features of public discussion of Jesus of Nazareth in the twenty-first century has been a massive upsurge in the view that this important historical figure did not even exist......The presentation of this view has changed radically in recent years, led by hopelessly unlearned people. It has two major features. One is rebellion against traditional Christianity, especially in the form of fundamentalism. The second is the massive contribution of the internet. Unlike published scholarly work, the internet is uncontrolled and apparently uncontrollableUltimately, The Jesus-myth approach is a matter of faith - everything that contradicts it is 'fake news'.
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Post by unkleE on Dec 2, 2017 22:05:57 GMT
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Post by jamierobertson on Dec 7, 2017 14:35:08 GMT
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Post by ignorantianescia on Dec 7, 2017 16:07:20 GMT
Wow, it looks like Carrier is in need of some pretty powerful sedative...
As in many other places (some of which contain too much information), he is a dead ringer for Donald Trump here.
But to end on a more upbeat note, we can also observe that Carrier has made remarkable progress in spelling Tim's name right.
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Post by timoneill on Dec 7, 2017 23:33:07 GMT
I'm glad I get a mention - such an honour. I'm adding a reviews and endorsement side-bar panel to my blog just so I can include "'Tim O’Neill, a known liar' - Dr. Richard Carrier PhD" in it. And - mirabile visu - he seems to have finally worked out how to spell my name. His attempted critique of my Tacitus article shows, yet again, that his main talent is for seeing things in texts that aren't there. He claims "Pliny goes on to say he only just learned of their beliefs after interrogating the very Christians he’s talking about", except Pliny actually says nothing of the sort. He simply says that he interrogated them and then details their practices and ideas. Nowhere does he say he "only just learned of their beliefs". I haven't read the rest of his rant, though I intend to add an article to my "Jesus Mythicism" series on "The Pre-Christian Jesus" which will include a critique of Carrier's whacky Philo/Jesus argument, so I suppose I'll have to down a couple of stiff whiskies and force myself to read the rest of it this weekend.
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Post by fortigurn on Dec 8, 2017 6:56:11 GMT
Have you been added yet to the illustrious list of people he has called insane?
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Post by ignorantianescia on Dec 8, 2017 15:41:49 GMT
Larry Hurtado has a moderate response up to some of Carrier's more relevant claims, showing carefully how Carrier's claims about the "Jewish archangel Jesus" in Philo and Zechariah are completely misguided. Enjoy: larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/gee-dr-carrier-youre-really-upset/Carrier will probably respond (by Monday at the very latest) that the Logos is still an archangel according to his definition (a bit like his weird love for the term "outer space") and pad that out to the best of his ability, but 1) that's the wrong way of using definitions as Galileo knew and 2) it's irrelevant because the high priest Joshua in Zechariah 6 is not the same as the man called Branch/anatole. By the way Tim, are you going to call the sidebar "testimonials" like John Quiggin (an Australian economist) did on his blog?
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Post by timoneill on Dec 13, 2017 4:20:37 GMT
Have you been added yet to the illustrious list of people he has called insane? Not yet, but give it time. Someone who is in danger of joining those ranks is Daniel N. Gullotta, whose remarkably trenchant critique of Carrier's clunker of a book was published in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus today: "On Richard Carrier’s Doubts - A Response to Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt", JSNJ, Volume 15, Issue 2-3, 2017, pages 310 – 346. It gives a scholarly background and context to where Carrier is coming from (since many of the readers of the JSHJ may never have heard of him) and then zeroes in nicely on the key flaws in Carrier's thesis. For a 36 page article, it's a rather good critique and surprisingly comprehensive. Carrier will be in a blogging frenzy for weeks after this, poor boy.
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Post by jamierobertson on Dec 13, 2017 11:23:13 GMT
Have you been added yet to the illustrious list of people he has called insane? Not yet, but give it time. Someone who is in danger of joining those ranks is Daniel N. Gullotta, whose remarkably trenchant critique of Carrier's clunker of a book was published in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus today: "On Richard Carrier’s Doubts - A Response to Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt", JSNJ, Volume 15, Issue 2-3, 2017, pages 310 – 346. It gives a scholarly background and context to where Carrier is coming from (since many of the readers of the JSHJ may never have heard of him) and then zeroes in nicely on the key flaws in Carrier's thesis. For a 36 page article, it's a rather good critique and surprisingly comprehensive. Carrier will be in a blogging frenzy for weeks after this, poor boy. If anyone has issues accessing the document, PM me. I have access via my university library account.
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Post by timoneill on Dec 13, 2017 18:55:41 GMT
Carrier will be in a blogging frenzy for weeks after this, poor boy. Mr Furious has beaten him to it and is already out of the blocks and away! And he's pinning his hopes on Carrier's silly Bayesian smoke and mirrors. Well, that's sure to work well for him. But one of the Treehouse Club has just noted in a comment "The best part was the 'James the Brother of Jesus' discussion. I think it settles the issue against the mythcist claims." Ooops ...
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Post by jamierobertson on Dec 13, 2017 20:24:27 GMT
Love the opening lines on the "bias" of the peer-reviewed press against mythicism. The similarities to YECs are eerie.
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Post by bjorn on Dec 14, 2017 12:57:07 GMT
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Post by sandwiches on Dec 17, 2017 17:12:15 GMT
Have read the review by Daniel N. Gullotta and enjoyed its straight-faced (but faintly ironic) dissection of its object. It is fascinating to see scholarship dissecting pseudo-scholarship:
I have never really understood ‘Bayes theorem’, but enjoyed this explanation (no room for subjectivity there eh?)
In brief, Bayes’ theorem is a probability calcula¬tion that involves assessing the likelihood of an event, based on conditions that might relate to said event.
P(h | e . b) = P (h|b) × P(e|h .b ------------------------------------------------------ [ P(h|b) × P(e| h. b )] + [P( ~h | b) × P(e | ~h. b)]
(What sort of mind tries to apply a mathematical formula to historical interpretation?)
Gullotta continues: Bayesian analysis aside, I will demonstrate that Carrier’s thesis is unconvincing because of its lack of evidence, strained readings, and troublesome assumptions.
He certainly does so. He dissects Carrier’s views on A Pre-Christian Celestial Jesus?, Paul on Jesus’ Birth and Humanity, Who Crucified Jesus? (Given our sources concerning Jesus’ death and knowledge about his executed contem¬poraries, the reality of a crucified Jesus as another failed messianic pretender from Palestine is remarkably more likely than a demonic crucifixion in outer space.) James, the Brother of the Lord (Given the sources, the most logical explanation is that James was the brother of Jesus and that this familial connection permitted him great status and influence within the early church) Mark, the Christian Homer? Jesus, the Jewish Odysseus? (I agree with Adam Winn that the ‘Jewish scriptures provide a more likely literary influence for Mark’s gospel than Homeric epics’). Hero Journeys, Myth Theory, and Jesus Traditions (The traditions of Jesus conforming to these legendary patterns does not negate his historicity any more than the legends connected with Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, and Apollonius of Tyana denies theirs)
He concludes: Scholarship necessarily remains open to the questions Carrier has raised, and yet, the answers he has given to these questions are unconvincing, if not tendentious. Scholars, however, may rightly question whether Carrier’s work and those who evangelize it exhibit the necessary level of academic detach-ment. If David L. Barrett was right, ‘That every generation discovers the historical Jesus that it needs’, then it is not surprising that a group with a pas¬sionate dislike for Jesus (and his ancient and modern associates) has found what they were looking for: a Jesus who conveniently does them the favor of not existing anywhere except in the imagination of deluded fundamentalists in the past and present.
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Post by sandwiches on Dec 17, 2017 18:37:45 GMT
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Post by ignorantianescia on Dec 17, 2017 22:21:57 GMT
Meanwhile Neil the text torturer continues his dark arts here.
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